Chapter Two
Kairen
The wind had been restless since morning.
Kairen Vale felt it long before the first thunder spoke. The currents of air coiled against his skin, tugging at the edges of the cloak that hid the amulet on his wrist.
The Hollowwood was uneasy tonight, and so was he.
He walked the ridgeline above the western ravine, boots scuffing stone powdered white with ancient ash. Below stretched the unclaimed lands—hard, feral country between the Empire of Sunvaara and the Kingdom of Telluria. The place where banners ended and the wilds began.
He usually stayed in his little cottage in the heart of the Hollowwood, venturing into the nearest town of Farvale only when he needed necessities. He’d built himself a life out here in the wilds, protected by the reputation of the Hollowwood as a haunted forest.
No one ventured near his home if they could help it, no one even knew he lived there.
He preferred it that way.
No one to hide from, no curious eyes who could see the animal that lurked in his shadow.
A smell rode the breeze: metal and fear.
He paused, nostrils flaring despite himself.
It was always the senses that betrayed him first—the too-keen hearing, the inhuman eyesight, the sharper hunger.
He had learned to master them by discipline, by the quiet recitation of spells until the human mind reasserted its hold.
Still, tonight they stirred.
Lightning traced a crooked vein across the sky, throwing the land into momentary clarity.In that flash he saw movement in the valley road—torches, a caravan. And a carriage in pride of place in the middle.
Sunvaaran colors.
And following them, darker shapes moving against the storm.
Bandits.
Kairen’s jaw tightened. They rarely ventured their far west from Telluria, but he’d heard that their king had recently started conscripting all mages.
And these bandits were mages. He could sense the magic in them.
It was obvious, they had turned to crime to sustain themselves as they ran from their king.Unconsciously, he touched the amulet on his wrist. The metal was cool, the sigils faintly luminous.
He should walk away.
Whatever happened down there was none of his concern.
The Sunvaarans and the Tellurians had their politics, their ambitions, their wars.
He owed them nothing. Not anymore.
A scream carried on the wind—human, terrified, female.
His beast surged to the forefront, battering against his defenses, yearning to slip free.
Kairen closed his eyes briefly.
He remembered other screams: laboratories lit by blue fire, Rindais’s calm voice dictating notes while subjects begged to die.
He had promised himself he would never again stand idle while someone suffered.
“Damn it,” he muttered, and loosed the amulet’s clasp.
Power shivered through him like a second heartbeat. His fangs descended, his vision turned supernaturally sharper. The magic in his blood, mutated and turned more feral by whatever Rindais had done to him, surged like a fire in his veins.
The storm answered.
He descended the slope in a blur of motion, the wind forming a shield around him.
The first bandit lunged—a ripple of shadow with a blade that moved like fire. He met the attack with a surge of air so dense it cracked steel. The man screamed and turned tail.
His companions came, crawling out of the rain. Kairen drew the storm closer, whispering magic spells.
The air obeyed, spinning into a cyclone of silvered rain.
Every pulse of magic cost him; he felt the familiar drag, the reminder that half his strength was sealed away to keep the beast inside him leashed.
A blade scraped his shoulder. He snarled—literally snarled—before he could stop himself.
The scent of his own blood hit his senses like fire, and for a heartbeat the animal in him surged forward.
His vision brightened; his hearing sharpened until he could count the beats of terrified hearts around him.
He forced breath through his teeth. Not now. Not again.
He slammed his palm against the amulet, feeling it sear his skin as it dampened the flood of power. The pain grounded him.
Through the rain he saw the caravan—wrecked, the horses down, soldiers fighting shadows that slipped through steel.
At the center crouched a woman in an indigo cloak, holding a dagger like she could fight the storm itself.
She was drenched, on her knees in the mud, her hair plastered against her cheek. Yet her gaze was unyielding, her eyes—dark, clear—as she stared up at the bandit snarling down at her.
“Fool,” Kairen hissed, more at himself than her. He raised both hands. The air cracked like a whip.
Thunder rolled down the ravine and burst in the midst of the bandits, sending them scattering. Some ran on foot, while others harnessed the caravan’s horses and fled.
For a moment, the rain stilled.
Silence, except for the hiss of cooling magic and the rasp of his own breathing. Bodies lay twisted on the ground. The surviving soldiers stared at him with fear only barely restrained.
Kairen ignored them. His gaze fixed on the woman who hadn’t run.
She crouched a few paces away, dagger lowered now, expression unreadable.
Up close he saw she was young, though the mask of calm she had forced over her features spoke of someone used to hiding nerves behind diplomacy.
Her hair, long and dark, clung to her cheeks, and her dusky skin was pale with the cold. But her black eyes spit fire at him.
The seal of the Sunvaaran empire gleamed on the clasp at her throat.
Great. A court official.
Exactly what he needed.
“You’re welcome,” he said flatly.
Her brow arched, the smallest possible acknowledgment of sarcasm. “I hadn’t yet thanked you.”
“You looked like you were composing the letter of gratitude in your head.” He turned away, scanning the tree line. “You can finish it once you’re out of my storm.”
“Your storm?” she repeated, scoffing. “So you enchanted the weather to follow instructions?”
He glanced back at her. “At the moment, it’s listening to me more than it is to you.”
The faintest twitch at the corner of her mouth—not quite a smile, more a challenge.
He hated that he noticed.
One of the guards limped forward, sword raised uncertainly. “Who are you? Show your sigil.”
Kairen flicked a glance at him. The man flinched and lowered the weapon. Good instinct.
“Your master sent you into cursed ground with no defenses,” Kairen said. “You’re lucky you’re not ash.”
The woman stepped closer, careful, measured. “We were not informed the borderlands had turned hostile. The reports said the road was peaceful.”
“Reports lie.” He wiped rain from his face.
“Whoever you are, enchanter, I owe you thanks for the intervention,” she said crisply. “And possibly an explanation.”
“Keep your thanks. I don’t work for gratitude.”
“Then for what?”
He hesitated. The truth—that he worked for atonement—wasn’t something he owed a stranger. “Survival,” he said instead. “Now gather what’s left of your men and get out. This place isn’t done with you.”
She folded her arms. “We can’t. Most of our horses are gone or dead, our driver as well. The nearest shelter is miles away.”
He swore under his breath. Of course. If he left them, it would be a toss-up whether the next wave of bandits or the weather would finish them off.
And then he’d spend the rest of his life hearing it in his dreams.
“You have a name?” he asked, mostly to delay the inevitable decision.
“Adira Sharma, envoy of Sunvaara.”
He almost smiled. Envoy. A perfectly polished title for someone who didn’t belong here.
“Kairen Vale,” he said. “Wanderer. Mage. Occasional storm.”
Her eyes flicked to the amulet on his wrist, still glowing faintly through the rain. “You’re bleeding. That charm—does it bind you?”
The question cut too close. “No,” he said dryly. “It keeps me safe.”
“Safe from what?” she murmured. And then a moment later: “Or safe for whom?”
He met her dark gaze, cold meeting calm. For a heartbeat, the air between them felt taut as a drawn wire, crackling with leftover magic and something else—curiosity, irritation, heat.
She didn’t look away.
That alone set her apart from anyone he’d met in years.
~
The surviving guards began collecting the dead. The rain eased to a drizzle. Kairen crouched beside one of the remnants of the wards on the road—nothing but slick residue now, steaming in the damp earth. He touched it with gloved fingers; the magic clung, wrong and familiar.
Rindais’s signature. The cursed mage’s corruption was unmistakable—an echo of the experiment that had made Kairen what he was.
His stomach turned.
“What is it?” Adira asked behind him.
“Rot,” he said. “And proof that your prince’s lands aren’t as secure as he pretends.”
Her tone sharpened. “You know of the Crown Prince?”
“I know men like him. He seems like a man to speak of destiny while standing on the bones of his advisors.”
A flicker crossed her face—defensiveness, then something like shame. “You speak boldly for a Tellurian,” she snapped.
“I have no allegiance,” he said dryly. “Freedom buys honesty.”
She knelt beside the residue of the wards, heedless of the mud, studying it with a diplomat’s detached focus. “You don’t think this is the work of the bandits,” she murmured. “Do you?” She raised an eyebrow at him as she waited for his answer.
Kairen looked at her anew. “What do you think?”
“I think the attack was no coincidence.” Her gaze lifted, meeting his again. “You arrived quickly. Are you sure you weren’t its target?”
He almost laughed. “If Rindais wanted me dead, he’d have chosen something more personal.”
Her expression didn’t waver. “You think this was the work of the Magelord?”
His stomach soured at the title. Trust Rindais to set himself up as a lord.
“What did you do to make an enemy of Rindias?” he asked instead.
“I could ask you the same,” she murmured, studying him intently.